


Haunted

by One_Chicago_Fanfiction



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Connor and his lack of coping mechanisms, Everyone is Queer, Jay is only mentioned, M/M, Will and his saviour complex, including Jay - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-22 23:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23701873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Chicago_Fanfiction/pseuds/One_Chicago_Fanfiction
Summary: At the end of a long day, Will finds Connor struggling to cope.
Relationships: Will Halstead/Connor Rhodes (Chicago Med)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76





	1. Will

Will stepped out of the hospital and breathed a sigh of relief. He loved his job, saw it more as a calling than a duty, but the last fifteen hours had been intense. It was one of those days where one case was resolved and another chart was pushed into his hands, a day in which patients overlapped patients and Will heard his name called in the ED more times than he could count, was pulled more directions than he could spread himself. 

So, yes. He loved his job, and he was damn glad this day was over. He walked slowly towards his car, pulling in deep lungfuls of Chicago’s air, breathing them out slowly through his nose. The sky was black as ink above him, and Will Halstead was torn between grabbing a late night drink at Molly’s with his brother, or heading home to crash. The thought of a duvet pulled up to his chin was just about as sweet as the thought of a beer with Jay. Will pulled out his phone, finger poised over the call button beneath Jay’s name in his contact’s list. 

And then he saw it. One quick glance to the left and there it was. One flashy car amid a carpark almost entirely comprised of flashy cars, but this one brought Will to a sudden halt. He knew that car, and the figure inside at the wheel, hunched over, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Will stopped breathing. 

Connor Rhodes was crying in his car. 

Will hadn’t seen much of the other doctor today, but there’d been a lot going on for Connor lately. Too much, really—by anyone’s standards. It was something Will had wanted to talk about, something he knew deep in his bones that Connor probably needed help getting through. He’d lost his father, lost the friend who may well have caused that death. It was only rumours, but Will knew how heavily it must have weighed on Connor. 

Will just never knew if he was the right person to help him, if the unresolved tension and the two desperate kisses they’d shared and never discussed would make Will the last person Connor wanted to talk to. Even if he was the right person, Will wasn’t sure he’d have the right words. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, to even ask Connor how he was doing, the words crumbled in his throat, tasted like ashes. 

And this was a private moment, surely. Surely Connor Rhodes wouldn’t want Will Halstead of all people to be the one to catch him in the middle of whatever this was—a breakdown, a moment of grief for a patient, the only way he could process one more bad day.

So Will started to walk away. A drink with his brother. He’d decided. He’d vent to Jay about his day, listen to Jay’s account of his own and try not to worry so damn much about the dangers of his little brother’s job. Same old comfortable cycle, a perfect fit. 

But Connor. 

Will had taken ten steps away when he realised that Connor crying in his car would be his undoing tonight, the aching thorn in his side, the stick caught in the spokes of his evening, the guilt he’d be too haunted by to even hear a word his brother was saying. 

Will Halstead stopped, took one more deep breath, and started back towards the car. Towards Connor.


	2. Connor

Will Halstead and his saviour complex. This was the first thing Connor thought, after the startle, when Will knocked gently on his passenger window. Connor cursed beneath his breath, his heart pounding from the fright. He slid the window down and hoped he looked more composed than he felt.

“What is it, Will?” he asked, and when he brought himself to meet Will’s eye for more than a fleeting second, he knew. Will was looking at him so intently, his expression taught with concern, his eyes too sharp and full of worry. Will wasn't just here for some arbitrary reason. He'd been watching Connor break down beneath the harsh lights of the parking lot. Connor’s heart felt like a wounded animal in his chest, and Will opened the passenger door and slipped into the car. 

With the door closed, and the window slid shut, the car was uncomfortably quiet, and filled with so much tension, so many unspoken words that Connor barely remembered how to breathe through it all. So he repeated his question, voice weaker this time, hardly more than a breath.

“What is it, Will?” He asked, and forced himself to look at Will for as long as he could hold his gaze. A second maybe—two at the most. 

“I'm here for you, Connor,” he said, and the words could have broken him. He scoffed, a weak burst of breath. “You've been there for me before. And I know—whatever’s happened between us in the past—if you’re not okay, if you need to talk to someone, you can talk to me.” 

And Will was so sincere. So sincere his words took up all the air in the car, left Connor feeling raw and vulnerable. He forced himself to draw in a long breath. 

“I'm fine,” Connor said. “Just...bad day.”

“Want a drink?” Will asked. “I was on my way to meet Jay at Molly’s, but if you want I'll cancel, grab a bottle somewhere. We can talk. Your place?”

With the final fraying thread of anything level headed left in him, Connor shook his head. “Not a good idea,” he said. “I'm back here in eight hours.” 

“Take a personal day,” Will said. “You took—what?—two days off after your father passed? And I'm pretty sure the second day was only because Goodwin caught you pulling into the parking lot and sent you home.” Will gave a weak smile, clearly trying to keep things light, maybe trying to pull a smile from Connor in turn. But Connor just felt tired, exhausted right down to his bones. “If there's anything you need,” Will said, his hand poised on the door handle. “Even if you just need me to leave. I'll go. Just...just don't—don't force yourself to be alone if you, if you don't want to be. Just call me. Anytime, okay?”

Will was out of the car and halfway to closing the door when Connor found the strength to say what he was thinking.

“Will,” he said, and Will paused, pulled the door all way open, and waited. Connor pulled in a deep breath. “There is one thing.”

“Sure,” said Will. “Anything.” 

“My father and I,” Connor said, swallowing hard. “We weren’t close. That’s what I can’t figure out. When he was alive, I pretty much hated the guy. Was pretty sure he hated me too. And now?” He huffed out a breath and Will paused for a moment outside the car, glanced back up at the lights of the ED before slipping back into the car. 

“You know,” he started, the words slow and measured, his eyes growing haunted as he pulled the words from somewhere deep within while Connor watched. “Me and Jay had issues with our father too. You know that. Didn’t make it any easier when he…when he died. Because—when someone’s gone…I don’t know. Then you’re out of chances. I spent my last day with my father trying to keep him and Jay from killing each other, or saying things they wouldn’t be able to live with later. Didn’t really work, either. Mourn whatever you could have had with him, but you gotta make peace with what actually happened—with what you did have.”

Connor breathed a humourless laugh, wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked at Will for as long as he could stand. Will’s eyes were sad and watchful, his gaze too much and too even. In that moment, Will Halstead saw more than Connor Rhodes had shared with anyone lately.

“When’d you get so wise?” He said, a futile attempt at keeping things light. He smiled at Will, but the tears in his eyes spilled down his cheeks as he did. He looked quickly away.

“You sure you don’t want that personal day?” Will asked. 

“I’m sure,” he said. “Thanks, though. Thanks.”

“Sure,” Will said, and he hesitated for a moment before slipping back out onto the street. “If you need anything…”

“I know,” Connor said, sniffing, smiling wetly up at Will. “Have a good night, Doctor Halstead.”

“You too, Rhodes,” Will said, his voice kind, his eyes alive with reflected streetlights and that trademark Halstead concern. He pushed the car door shut.

And Connor drove away. Every second in the car made his chest tighter, made the tears press harder, made him miss Will Halstead more and more. As he weaved through Chicago roads, he thought about the night that could have been—heavy booze and heavy conversation with Will. He thought about the kisses they’d shared, the desperate, burning part of him that wanted more than that, and the final dregs of logic that told him giving into that desire in the throes of grief was a bad idea, could never be the foundation for anything good. 

So he made a pact with himself, right there in the drivers seat, waiting at a red light as the city night carried on all around him. Someday, when grief and regrets weren’t the only things he could taste, Connor Rhodes would kiss Will Halstead again.


End file.
